


The sky connects us

by PinkLotus (EspurrsVena)



Series: Birthday Series [4]
Category: JO1 (Japan Band), Produce 101 (Japan TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pilot, Birthday Fluff, Birthday Party, Fluff, OT11 - Freeform, no beta we die like real men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24022573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EspurrsVena/pseuds/PinkLotus
Summary: The sky is his destiny, but sometimes it just feels good to celebrate with your friends.
Series: Birthday Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698286
Kudos: 8





	The sky connects us

Being named Sukai, the sky was his destiny. It was something he knew since he was a child.   
When his older brother Ren was accepted into the training program for new pilots, Sukai couldn’t wait for his own graduation, so he could join, too. The stories his brother shared only strengthened his own desire to become a pilot himself. His own acceptance letter became one of his most treasured belongings once it arrived.   
Naturally, the training was hard – a lot of lives depended on his skills as a pilot – and while Ren did his best to help with his studies, the older brother had already finished the training, so he was busy with exploring the world. 

However, Sukai wasn’t alone. During the training he became friends with 3 other boys, called Shosei, Shion and Syoya, who started at the same time as him and often they studied together. Eventually, only the 4 of them passed the qualification exam and while it was a joyous occasion, it also meant that they had to part. Each one of the now dubbed “legendary S4” would fly with a more seasoned pilot to gain more knowledge. Unfortunately, Sukai didn’t had luck to be assigned to his older brother, Ren, his friend Shosei was the lucky one. 

He had gotten to another pilot called Sho. While Sukai was initially nervous about flying someone he didn’t know, Sho was a good mentor and the crew they were usually working with, made him feel relaxed, too. As someone fresh from the academy he would only do domestic flights, so their crew was rather small. Usually, he and Sho worked with the flight attendance Ruki, Junki and Keigo and at their home base usually saw the faces of the technician Takumi and his apprentice Issei. 

Since all S4 members and Ren shared the same home airport, sometimes they were able to meet up after their flights, yet together with their experience their flight distances grew, so seeing each other became a rare thing. They always tried to meet up at least on their birthdays or the day of the graduation, but it seemed like that Sukai was the doomed one that year.   
His company had gifted him with his first overseas flight on the day before his birthday, but all of his friends and even Ren had schedules that day.   
A situation like that was normal in the life of a pilot, yet it made him sad. He wanted to share his excitement about his first overseas flight and celebrate with them. 

Due the checks he had to do after the flight, it was past midnight when he arrived at his apartment. He had gotten some birthday messages already, yet he was not in the mood to celebrate at all.   
To make the matter worse, he heard some noises from his apartment when he reached the door. He had no pets and aside from himself, only Ren had a key for his apartment, but his brother was abroad, so there was the chance that there was a burglar inside of his home. As quiet as possible he opened the door and got ready to fight the thief, yet when he turned the light on, all of his friends were standing inside and cheered “Happy Birthday Sukai!”. 

“What are you doing here? I thought you were busy?” It was unexpected, but that was the reason why he was even happier than usually to see everyone. All of his friends had gathered besides their busy schedules. He was sure that they had to use a lot of favours to make that possible, thus he was beyond thankful for their presence.   
“Do you really think I let my baby brother celebrate his birthday alone?” Ren was the first one coming towards him. In his hands there was a big chocolate cake shaped like an airplane. “Happy Birthday. Make a wish!”   
At first, Sukai wanted to complain that Ren had called him his baby brother again, but he was too overjoyed by the moment. He didn’t even know what to wish for – his birthday wish had come true already. 

Still he blew out the candles and instead of smoke his nostrils were suddenly filled with chocolate. Shion and Syoya had sneaked behind him and pushed his head into the cake.   
“You surprise me daily that you didn’t crash a plane yet!” He heard his older brother and Sho scolding his friends, yet Sukai was just laughing. The remaining S4 member, Shosei handed him a towel, so that he could clean his face.   
They were a chaotic bunch outside of the cockpit and that's what made him feel relaxed when they spend time with each other.  
“I’m not sure if I want to eat the cake now...” Ruki, however, didn’t seem to think that the joke was funny, but later Sukai saw that he took a piece anyway.  
“More for us! Yeah.” Meanwhile, Junki high-fived Issei.   
It felt good just to joke around and not being in charge for several hundred lives. That’s why each one of them cherished each other’s birthdays. Those were the perfect opportunities to let go of all the stress and responsibilities. They were all still young and they had worked hard to chase their dreams. They deserved nights like this. 

Speaking for deserving things, after the birthday boy had cleaned himself, the first gift was placed into his hands and after he had opened it, the next ones followed on the spot. He had told his friends that he didn’t need anything, no, with his salary he could afford most of the things he wanted, yet they had insisted on giving him something.   
For Sukai, their existence and their friendship were already the most valuable gift. Their job gave them the chance to see places all over the world, make a home everywhere, yet for him, his home was where his friends and family were. They could be on some deserted island right now and he would feel the same happiness as he was feeling in that moment. 

Forgotten was not only the stress from work, but also his fatigue. Ren had gotten him an old gaming console, a model like the first one they had back at their parents' house, which needed to be tested. Half of their group were gamers anyway, a hobby which was pretty useful when your training was basically playing an oversized videogame more than half of the time.   
Although it was his birthday, his friends didn’t let him go easily during the games. Surprisingly, especially Issei, the youngest and the one who had never been to a flight simulator proved to be his toughest opponent. Even Ren had lost to the youngest, something that his competitive older brother was still complaining about 15 minutes later. 

“Where did you learn to play such an old game?” Meanwhile, Sukai was more surprised about the fact Issei knew of that game.   
“We had a lot of games at home.”   
“Issei is pretty skilful with his fingers. But that’s why he became my apprentice.” Takumi added.   
“Takumi, that sounded wrong.”   
Clueless as always when it came to work unrelated things, Takumi looked at Keigo. “Why? The planes might be big, but precision is the most important thing when it comes to their maintenance.”   
Before Keigo could drop more comments with double meanings, Junki shoved a piece of the smashed cake into his mouth. 

As they shared the same workplace work became sooner or later a topic of their talks anyway.   
“How was it to fly abroad for the first time?”, asked Sho him eventually. “It was weird not having you with us today.”   
“The light itself was not that special. We only flew to Incheon. Flights to Okinawa take about the same time.”   
“But it was your first overseas flight. Nothing special happened?”   
“There was some Korean popstar on board, so the boarding took forever.” While the flight itself was about the same time as his usual routes, the arrival had been different. Suddenly, everyone around him had spoken a different language and while he didn’t leave the airport, the airport itself had different vibes than the ones he knew. Eventually, each airport in Japan was the same in the end and it made Sukai sad that he hadn’t got time to explore Incheon at least. 

“Hopefully, they will let me fly overseas soon, too. My sister recently moved to Beijing and it would be so cool to visit her.” Out of the S4 Sukai had been the first one who had gotten an overseas flight which had surprised him. He had thought that it was some kind of birthday tradition of their company because Ren had also gotten his one for his birthday a few years ago.   
“You know that you can visit her any time? Just buy a ticket.”   
“Shion, it’s so much cooler when you can say that you flew yourself.”   
Like during their training times Shosei and Shion started bickering while Sukai and Syoya watched and laughed about their antics.   
“Will they ever stop?”, Syoya said while continuing to watch their friendly fight which was moved to the gaming console now.   
“Maybe once they grew up.”   
“So never?” 

No matter how much bickering happened or how far they were apart physically, the sky connected him and his friends. It was said that sky was limit and so far, none of them had found their limit, only the sky. Also, they’ve found each other thanks to the sky. Mentally, Sukai thanked his parents for letting the sky become his destiny.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Sukai!  
> Now, you are finally an adult, too.  
> For my bias wrecker's birthday and the lack of new OT11 content I went with a little different approach for the birthday AU, but I hope you guys don't mind.  
> See ya~


End file.
